Technological FoundationsBuilding on the Geissler tube and other earlier inventions, the American Daniel McFarlan Moore develops the ‘Moore lamp’. 1 A predecessor to neon and fluorescent lights, it is made by filling vacuum-sealed glass tubes with nitrogen or carbon dioxide; the gas emits a white glow when charged by an electrical current. 2

Filling a gap in the Periodic Table, British chemist and future Nobel Prize winner William Ramsay discovers neon gas in ‘a blaze of crimson’ in his London laboratory. (Ramsay is also the discoverer of other noble gases — argon, helium, krypton and xenon — which will later be used in neon lights.) However, Ramsay’s aims are scientific rather than commercial; more than a decade will pass before practical applications for neon are found. 3

Moore tubes are installed commercially for the first time, in a hardware store in Newark, New Jersey. Nevertheless, their high cost limits their widespread adoption.4

Georges Claude:
Neon Pioneer
i

Georges Claude, a French chemist and engineer, injects glass tubes with noble gases, including neon, to create the first neon lights.
Claude’s neon lights gain considerable attention when they are used to illuminate a peristyle of the Grand Palais during the Paris Auto Show. 6

Seeing potential advertising applications, Jacques Fonseque, an assistant to Claude, begins shaping neon tubes into letters and symbols.
Claude’s first commercial neon sign is posted over a barbershop on Boulevard Montmartre, in Paris, with the words PALAIS COIFFEUR.

Claude begins to promote his tubes overseas and introduces them at the Congress of the Illuminating Society, in Pittsburgh, US. 7

Claude’s neon technology is successfully granted patents by the United States Patent Office,7 thus paving the way for a new era in advertising signage in the US.

Claude makes his American debut with a pair of neon signs for a Packard car dealership in Los Angeles. 9

Claude Launches Neon EmpireNearly monopolising neon sign technology and production, Claude expands his reach by setting up Claude Neon Light Inc. in New York. He soon franchises his operations to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, Casablanca and Shanghai. 10
In New York, a so-called Neon War is soon waged as numerous neon companies, including one called Rainbow Lights Inc., emerge in defiance of Claude’s patents.11

ii

Metropolis, the classic German science-fiction film directed by Fritz Lang, applies neon lighting effects to evoke a futuristic vision of the city.

Published in the US, Claude Neon News boasts of Claude’s triumphs while issuing stern warnings to those who would violate his patents. 12

Masaru Ibuka, a future Sony co-founder, demonstrates ‘running neon’ at the Paris Exhibition, an international science fair. Producing an animated, flashing effect, his invention wins the exhibition’s highest honor. 15

Czech artist Zdenĕk Pešánek creates the artwork Fontána lázeňství (‘Spa Fountain’), which is shown the following year at the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. The fibreglass sculpture of a torso employs neon and responds to the exhibition’s theme of ‘art and technology in modern life’. 16

Neon Tubes in Nazi Propaganda Also at the Paris International Exhibition, an illuminated neon swastika projects Nazi strength and technological advancement at the German Pavilion. In Berlin, the Nazi newspaper Die Braune Post marks its headquarters with a large neon sign — though by 1940, it will go dark as the Nazi regime orders a nationwide blackout to protect German cities against Allied air raids. 17

The nighttime lights of Times Square, and in cities all along the East Coast of the US, are ordered blacked out as a precaution against possible German bombing. 21

World War II ends, ushering in an era of social, technological and other shifts that begin to make neon signs obsolete in the US. However, neon signs will gain ever greater prominence in Hong Kong in the postwar era.

Neon in Popular Culture
After the razzle-dazzle of the 1930s, neon’s representation in Hollywood takes a darker turn. Films such as I Wake Up Screaming (1941), directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — alongside novels such as Nelson Algren’s The Neon Wilderness (1947) — use neon to evoke violence, crime and destitution. 23

Italian artist Lucio Fontana installs his groundbreaking work Ambiente Spaziale a Luce Nera (‘Black Environment’) at the Naviglio Gallery in Milan. A giant amoeba-like swirl of neon is suspended in a darkened space to create an immersive environment. 22

vi

In booming postwar Japan, the National Federation of Local Neon Sign Associations is formed to research, survey and provide safety guidelines and training to the neon sign industry. 27

Renowned Japanese graphic designer Yusaku Kamekura designs an animated neon sign for companies such as Toray. It leads to other graphic designers taking on neon sign projects.

ix

Though using fluorescent (and not neon) light, artist Dan Flavin’s Diagonal of Personal Ecstasy (the Diagonal of May 25, 1963, to Constantin Brancusi) creates controversy in the New York art world, as some critics question its validity as a work of art. 45

In New York, the National Electric Sign Association (NESA) launches a series of ‘Scrap Old Signs’ initiatives to dismantle signs considered worn-out and obsolete. 34

American artist Bruce Nauman creates The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths using neon text as a poetic fragment. 35

In New York, the storied Eddie’s Glass and Neon Institute (Egani), founded in 1930 to train neon workers, closes its doors.

xi

Rudi Stern opens his influential gallery Let There Be Neon in New York to promote neon signs as an art form. 37

The All Japan Neon Sign Association cooperates in the effort to save energy in Japan during the Arab Oil Embargo. They also portray neon signs as an energy-saving advertising medium. 38

xiii

Light artist Lili Lakich founds the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles to highlight the art of neon and the skill of its makers.

xv

The Neon Museum is founded in Las Vegas, dedicated to preserving, studying and exhibiting iconic Las Vegas signs. Among its initiatives is an outdoor ‘Neon Boneyard’.

In Tokyo, the Association of Qualified Neon Sign Engineers organises a series of festivities in June to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Among the events is a coordinated ‘performance’ for which shops in the Ginza district turn off their neon signs for 15 minutes.

xviii

Pepsi sells its factory on New York City’s East River to a developer. But the factory has been topped by a massive Pepsi-Cola neon sign since 1936, and seeing its continuing marketing value, the company retains part of the site so the sign can be reinstalled later.

A French environmentalist group called Clan du Néon protests advertising lighting under the slogan: ‘For cities of light, against neon cities.’ Among other activities, its members furtively shut off illuminated signs in order to save energy. 41

A residential tower is completed along New York’s East River, on the former Pepsi factory site. The work of well-known architecture firm Arquitectonica, the building is designed to highlight views of the iconic 1936 Pepsi-Cola neon sign that originally stood on the site and has now been reinstalled there.